Percy Bysshe Shelley Life Quotations

Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.

Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, -- but it returneth.

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep -- he hath awakened from the dream of life -- 'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.

Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.

I could lie down like a tired child, And weep away the life of care Which I have borne, and yet must bear.

I have been a wanderer among distant fields. I have sailed down mighty rivers.

Love, from its awful throne of patient power In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs And folds over the world its healing wings.

And bid them love each other and be blest: And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves, And come and be my guest, - for I am Love's.

I love Love - though he has wings, And like light can flee, But above all other things, Spirit, I love thee - Thou art love and life! Oh come, Make once more my heart thy home.

In proportion to the love existing among men, so will be the community of property and power. Among true and real friends, all is common; and, were ignorance and envy and superstition banished from the world, all mankind would be friends. The only perfect and genuine republic is that which comprehends every living being. Those distinctions which have been artificially set up, of nations, societies, families, and religions, are only general names, expressing the abhorrence and contempt with which men blindly consider their fellowmen.

Love's Pestilence, and her slow dogs of war.

The One remains, the many change and pass; Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows fly; Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments.

The most refined abstractions of logic conduct to a view of life, which, though startling to the apprehension, is, in fact, that which the habitual sense of its repeated combinations has extinguished in us. It strips, as it were, the painted curtain from this scene of things. I confess that I am one of those who are unable to refuse my assent to the conclusions of those philosophers who assert that nothing exists but as it is perceived.

Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity.

Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

All love is sweet Given or returned. Common as light is love, And its familiar voice wearies not ever.

Life may change, but it may fly not; Hope may vanish, but can die not; Truth be veiled, but still it burneth; Love repulsed, - but it returneth!

Familiar acts are beautiful through love.

Love's very pain is sweet, But its reward is in the world divine Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.